


Raise your voice.

by grimdark_cake



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Art, M/M, Rebuilding Erebor and Dale, and ficlets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 04:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimdark_cake/pseuds/grimdark_cake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo appreciates music, he really does. But you can have too much of a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raise your voice.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Raise your voice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042855) by [Toshirei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshirei/pseuds/Toshirei)



Bilbo appreciates music - he enjoys a pretty ballad or good reel to dance to as much as the next hobbit – but dwarves surround themselves with it. They sing when they’re happy, when they’re drunk, when they’re melancholy. Yes, they sing story ballads for entertainment, but other songs keep a work team in synchronisation, teach history to the children, attempt to negotiate directly with Aulë… or let the whole mountain know you’re about to play ‘hide the hammer’ with an actual partner.

Sacred and bawdy, some of Bilbo’s most vivid memories from that first winter in Erebor can be called up by a song.

 

 

 

Thorin’s laboured breathing is barely audible over the rumbling dirge coming from the nearest tent. They’re grieving for their own loved ones, not yet for their king; it’s not _Thorin’s_ path to Aulë’s halls they sing of…

Bilbo still wants to shout at them to shut up.

Of course he does no such thing. He still has some good manners left, thank you very much.

He clutches his borrowed coat around him and greedily watches the faint rise and fall of Thorin’s chest. Not tonight, he tells him. We won’t sing for you tonight. And he pretends to himself that Thorin can hear him.

  

 

 

Bilbo’s fingers are trapped between the warmth of Thorin’s palm and the cold (reassuringly thick) metal chain. Its beat the sound of hammers and picks on stone, the work song rises from the depths beneath him, from the walkways and upside-down spires and forests of scaffolding, picked up by throat after throat until the great halls are ringing with it. His stomach drops as the stone beneath his feet is hauled higher, and he feels Thorin’s grip on his hand tighten. 

“Are you not well?”

The burn of exhilaration in his eyes has been replaced by concern, and no, that’s not fair. Now is the time for Thorin to glow with half-disbelieving delight as his mountain returns to life, a feast for Bilbo’s eyes (and a picture to be remembered and clung to later, when his bed is cold and his room so dark and the Shire so so far away.)  

He thinks of joking, “I was never afraid of heights before I met you dwarves.” The words die in his throat. Too soon.

 

 

 

The plumbing in the bathing halls being repaired should have been a good thing, but Bilbo’s starting to think fondly of the wooden tub in his bedchamber.

There’s nothing he can say to defend himself. “I’ll have you know my balls are perfectly fine,” will just encourage them, won’t it? So they may mock all they like. Bilbo’s small-clothes are staying on. Smaug himself could not get him naked just a couple of foot from an equally naked Thorin.  He is already showing his, um, regard.

He should turn around and leave, but he won’t. He’s going to stare, he’s unable not to. He’s going to eat him up with his eyes, as he always does, and one day Thorin will notice, and that will be the end of his trust and respect.

 

 

 

Thorin’s fingers move quickly, making the metal strings chime out, their clear bright notes and his lovely rich baritone moving against each other in perfect counterpoint.  

Bilbo doesn’t think anyone would blame him if he doesn’t immediately call out to announce his presence, but he still feels strangely guilty. Thorin is selfish with his talents; he doesn’t often sing in public, and apparently only the Ravens get to hear his harp. Observing this feels almost like theft.

The song is so heart-felt, and Bilbo feels a humiliating surge of jealousy for some dwarf he’s never even met.

Thorin sees him. His fingers catch a bum note, and for a second there’s sheer panic on his face.

Oh… 

 

 

 

Bilbo’s sure he has a gormless grin upon his face.

They may have fled the feast, but he can still hear the beat of feet against the floor and axe handles against tables. He can feel the thrum of a thousand throats humming, and Bilbo might not understand the song, but Thorin’s ears are turning bright red as he peels off his final layers.

His skin is moon pale and furnace hot, and beneath Bilbo’s fingers his pulse jumps to the rhythm of the song. The heartbeat of the mountain, Bilbo thinks wildly, stupidly, his own blood pounding in his ears.

And, for tonight at least, this is all mine.

 

 

 

It was supposed to be some kind of victory, when Men of Dale and Dwarves of Erebor joined forces against some Iron Hill dwarves who thought a bawdy song involving a dragon was a suitable song for this particular building site. Now the cuts have been dressed and bones set, and new – not much more appropriate, in Bilbo’s opinion – songs are filling the crisp (and cold, it’s always cold) spring air.

And their bone-headed leaders are already ruining the truce.

Of course, Thorin could actually apologise for the events of last autumn rather than throwing around grandiose building plans and expecting Bard to read his mind. Bard could accept that Thorin isn’t actually trying to turn Dale into a client of Erebor. Oh, and that telling a dwarf to just ‘throw something together’ is a killing insult. Instead, they’re shouting at each other.

Bilbo is going to bang their heads together. Hard.

All he has to do is find a stool.

 

 

 

Good food deserves your full attention. It’s an old hobbit truism, but not one the dwarves seem to agree with.

Tradition says every dwarf in the city gets one square meal a day courtesy of the King, and they certainly make the most of it. Bilbo sits with a different member of the Company every evening. He tries every dish that is passed his way, and talks to tinkers and miners and warriors and bards and merchants. He meets dwarves who claim to have wandered as far south as Gondor and trekked through the icy wastes of Forochel and traded with dwarf clans from beyond the Sea of Rhûn. He has crumbs in his hair and ale froth on his coat, and Kili may have deafened him in one ear, but his belly’s full and he’s surrounded by new friends and the older ones who are starting to feel more like family.

Gandalf said he’d return in the spring, to accompany Bilbo on the trip home. But he’s late, which is unlike him, and Bilbo’s no longer completely sure where ‘home’ is.

 

 

 

Sound does travel well in the mountain. Too well.

Bilbo does try his best to sleep. He curls his fingers in Thorin’s hair and tries to imagine a spring breeze coming in through an open window, bringing with it the sound of rustling leaves and the hoot of a hunting owl. But no, it isn’t working. What he has is the still cold air of a mountain chamber and, somewhere not too far away, a young dwarf crooning a lullaby.

At least, he hopes it’s a lullaby.

He’s not sure it sounds like a lullaby.

Thorin hums in his sleep, lazily singing along, purring out some of the words in the common tongue.

Not a lullaby.

 

 

Bilbo appreciates music, he does.

But you can have too much of a good thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Made for the [Winter Drawing/Writing Challenge](http://grimdarkcake.tumblr.com/post/42380566786/winter-drawing-writing-challenge) prompt 30 - Sing loudly/obnoxiously.
> 
> I got a little carried away.
> 
> All the lyrics are from real songs. From the top: [The Lyke Wake Dirge](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_jKsQjuCfE) (traditional), [The Canny Miner Lad](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcOyJ4y-Lss) (Ian Campbell), [Do Your Balls Hang Low?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frXQu0RwEOA&feature=player_detailpage#t=7s) (traditional), [When Ye Go Away](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyoMs6EzOTM) (The Waterboys), [Jambi](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noz6-KaT4fA) (Tool), [The Song of the Lonely Mountain](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqnSoTgjBrg) (Neil Finn), [ The Flowing Bowl](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V4G1O7z2Dg) (traditional), and [Bend Your Mind](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDab4h3zXbo) (Elysian Fields). Imagining them as used by the dwarves takes more imagination in some cases than others!


End file.
